Plugins

    Install the application from its GitHub repository using - this also places it in your virtualenv’s src directory as a cloned Git repository:

    You should end up with a folder structure similar to this:

    1. env/
    2.     src/
    3.         django-polls/
    4.             polls/
    5.                 __init__.py
    6.                 admin.py
    7.                 models.py
    8.                 templates/
    9.                 tests.py
    10.                 urls.py
    11.                 views.py

    Let’s add it this application to our project. Add 'polls' to the end of INSTALLED_APPS in your project’s settings.py (see the note on The INSTALLED_APPS setting about ordering ).

    Add the following line to urlpatterns in the project’s urls.py:

    1. url(r'^polls/', include('polls.urls', namespace='polls')),

    Make sure this line is included before the line for the django-cms urls:

    django CMS’s URL pattern needs to be last, because it “swallows up” anything that hasn’t already been matched by a previous pattern.

    Now run the application’s migrations using south:

      At this point you should be able to create polls and choices in the Django admin - localhost:8000/admin/ - and fill them in at /polls/.

      However, in pages of the polls application we only have minimal templates, and no navigation or styling. Let’s improve this by overriding the polls application’s base template.

      add my_site/templates/polls/base.html:

      1. {% extends 'base.html' %}
      3. {% block content %}
      4.     {% block polls_content %}
      5.     {% endblock %}
      6. {% endblock %}

      So now we have integrated the standard polls app in our project. But we’ve not done anything django CMS specific yet.

      Creating a plugin

      If you’ve played around with the CMS for a little, you’ve probably already encountered CMS Plugins. They are the objects you can place into placeholders on your pages through the frontend: “Text”, “Image” and so forth.

      We’re now going to extend the django poll app so we can embed a poll easily into any CMS page. We’ll put this integration code in a separate package in our project.

      This allows integrating 3rd party apps without having to fork them. It would also be possible to add this code directly into the django-polls app to make it integrate out of the box.

      Create a new package at the project root called polls_plugin:

      So our workspace looks like this:

      In your poll application’s models.py add the following:

      1. from django.db import models
      2. from cms.models import CMSPlugin
      3. from polls.models import Poll
      6. class PollPlugin(CMSPlugin):
      7.     poll = models.ForeignKey(Poll)
      9.     def __unicode__(self):
      10.         return self.poll.question

      Note

      django CMS plugins inherit from cms.models.CMSPlugin (or a subclass thereof) and not models.Model.

      For our poll plugin, we’re going to write the following plugin class:

      1. from cms.plugin_base import CMSPluginBase
      3. from django.utils.translation import ugettext as _
      6. class CMSPollPlugin(CMSPluginBase):
      7.     model = PollPlugin  # model where plugin data are saved
      8.     module = _("Polls")
      9.     name = _("Poll Plugin")  # name of the plugin in the interface
      10.     render_template = "djangocms_polls/poll_plugin.html"
      12.     def render(self, context, instance, placeholder):
      13.         context.update({'instance': instance})
      14.         return context
      16. plugin_pool.register_plugin(CMSPollPlugin)  # register the plugin

      Note

      All plugin classes must inherit from and must register themselves with the cms.plugin_pool.plugin_pool.

      The convention for plugin naming is as follows:

      • SomePlugin: the model class
      • CMSSomePlugin: the plugin class

      You don’t need to follow this, but it’s a sensible thing to do.

      The render_template attribute in the plugin class is required, and tells the plugin which render_template to use when rendering.

      In this case the template needs to be at polls_plugin/templates/djangocms_polls/poll_plugin.html and should look something like this:

      Now add polls_plugin to INSTALLED_APPS and create a database migration to add the plugin table (using South):

      Finally, start the runserver and visit .

      You can now drop the Poll Plugin into any placeholder on any page, just as you would any other plugin.